Muhammad Ali: People Like That Never Get Knocked Down

Rarely have performative and athletic aptitudes intertwined with such fluency. When we first noticed him, around the Liston fight, we noticed he was different—different in the way an exposed diamond is different from a chunk of cement. It was as if the boxing ring had become a bejeweled pulpit, and the sermons that rang from above held more holy suspense than blood action.

It became obvious—for Muhammad Ali—that boxing was a secondary skill, one that furthered a spiritual quest. He was a seeker for that which  lay far beyond Vegas hotel rooms and ringside misery.

Once called the most famous man on earth, he had a detachment from those who wished him good or ill. Redemption arrived from beyond the roiling crowds and praise and money. If the gloves were cut off, the hands would remain in prayer.

At the end, when the body failed and he could no longer raise his arms, salvation swooned and led him from the Ring. Ali then entered the mystic, that forever sanctified, quiet kingdom where victory and loss are unknown. 

Rest assured, people like that never get knocked down.

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Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis: Cultured Queen of Branding

 

 

Gertrude Stein, reflecting on her childhood home in Oakland, California, famously said, ‘There is no there there’. When considering Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis, that quote seems somewhat applicable.

Biographers have had a tough time with Jackie. She was manipulative and false; she was genuine and kind; she demonstrated women’s empowerment; she was a submissive cuckquean; she was little more than a hat rack; she was a style icon.

Where is the 'there'?

It’s this Zelig-like quality that perpetuates her persona. For millions of people, she is whatever they want(ed) her to be at any given moment. When she married John Kennedy in 1953, she knew the score. But it was worth the ride. The money, fame, and glitz. Then Dallas. And then a slow, five-year reinvention before shacking with Aristotle Onassis and big bucks.

She was vilified for selling out, for stamping on love with lucre, but the critics
undervalued her survival instincts. She needed that Fifth Avenue apartment to support her brand—for the brand was everything; it had been from the beginning. No one ever accused Jacqueline Onassis of being dumb.

She was the cultured Queen of Branding, years ahead of her time. It’s not so much what you do; it’s how you do nothing …because for such geniuses, for such existential sirens, there really is—and never will be—no there there.

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